Left to Be Desired Episode 7: 60th Venice Biennale with Vlatka Horvat, Șerban Savu, and Oto Hudec

Episode 7 of the SAVA podcast Left to be Desired features a conversation with artists Vlatka Horvat (Croatia), Oto Hudec (Slovakia), and Serban Savu (Romania) in their respective pavilions in the Venice Biennale 2024. 

 

Left to be Desired is available to listen to on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music/Audible and Audacy. You can also access it via the podcast website: 
https://lefttobedesired.libsyn.com/site 

 

Left to be Desired podcast explores the distinctiveness of the socialist path through the Anthropocene by bringing together artistic and scholarly insights into the ecologies of global Socialism. Maja & Reuben Fowkes will invite artists and researchers to talk about their practice and exchange ideas at the intersection of ecology, climate change, art and the Socialist Anthropocene. 

 

60th Venice Biennale with Vlatka Horvat, Șerban Savu, and Oto Hudec.

 

In episode 7 of Left to be Desired, Maja and Reuben Fowkes visit the artists Vlatka Horvat (Croatia), Șerban Savu (Romania), and Oto Hudec (Slovakia) in their respective national pavilions in the 60th Venice Biennale 2024.  The conversations aimed to discuss issues around ecology, sustainability, the legacies of socialism, and how they relate to the Biennale's theme of the year "Foreigners Everywhere", as a focus on artists who are themselves foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, exiles, and refugees, particularly those who move between the Global South and the Global North. 

Vlatka Horvat talked about the potentialities of circulating art through alternative logistics of migrant networks.  The conversation with Șerban Savu was focused on his artistic project around the relationship between work and leisure. And finally, Oto Hudec's proposal showcased the protection of trees and crucial role of protestors against deforestation. 

 

About the Speakers

 

Vlatka Horvat (Croatia) 

Vlatka Horvat is a Croatian-born London-based artist who uses a range of media such as sculpture, installation, drawing, performance, photography, video, and writing. In her work, she explores the relationship between the body and its surroundings, as well as questions related to presence and the ways in which things occupy and share space. She has had exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, PEER (London), Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna), Hessel Museum – Bard Center for Curatorial Studies (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY), and MoMA PS1 (New York City), and her work has been included in the Croatian Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2018 (Venice), Aichi Triennale (Nagoya), and the 11th Istanbul Biennale.

 

Șerban Savu (Romania)

 

Șerban Savu lives and works in Cluj, Romania. He attended the University of Art and Design in Cluj, Romania (2001), after which he was awarded a two-year postgraduate research grant to Venice. Considered part of the group of painters known as the Cluj-school, Savu's figurative paintings skilfully rendered canvases capture the daily existence of contemporary Romanians at work and leisure. Savu's works were exhibited at Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome; Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague; Museo Pietro Canonica a Villa Borghese, Rome; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; Le Lait Centre D'art Contemporain, Albi; PLATEAU, Samsu. 

 

Oto Hudec (Slovakia)

 

Oto Hudec is an artist and activist lives and works in Košice, Slovakia. His projects often use stories and utopian visions to explore climate change, globalization, migration, and the life of minority communities. SOLO SHOWS: 2019: “We Are All Carbon,” Gandy Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2017; “House of Isabel,” Gallery OFF Format, Brno, Czech Republic; “Archipelago,” Kunsthalle Bratislava, Slovakia; “Prague Day after the Air Raid,” Artwall Gallery Prague, Czech Republic; “The Man Who Travels with Bees,” Gandy gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia; 2014: “Nor Tortoise Shell nor Blades of Grass,” MMCA Chang Dong National Art Studio, Seoul, South Korea; 2013: “Nomadia,” Mutuo Espaco de Arte, Barcelona, Spain; “Tales from the Other Seas,” Espaço Gesto, Porto, Portugal; 2011: “Traffic Jam,” Miscelanea space, Barcelona, Spain.